The decade from 1997 to 2006 which ended just a few months ago was the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty. Within that context, the Union Internationale des Architectes (UIA) and UNESCO joined in sponsoring the international ideas competition entitled “Architecture and the Eradication of Poverty”. Did this initiative represent a genuine commitment, a half-hearted initiative or a cynical intellectual mind game? The fates of the projects developed for the competition raise a number of questions.